Illusions of Reality
by AlantisB
Summary: *FINISHED* Duo Maxwell was just a normal, everyday hacker from Asbury Park, Nj. But then he is shown a message to follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole to see the true Wonderland. What is the Matrix? Warning: AU, 1x2


Illusions of Reality ****

Illusions of Reality

By AlantisB

Disclaimer: I do not own The Matrix (my favorite movie) nor Gundam Wing (my favorite anime, at the moment). Please don't sue me! ::cries while holding up a white flag:: I'm innocent! I'm innocent! Don't shoot!

A/N: Duo was a normal, everyday hacker in the ghetto of Asbury Park, NJ. But then he is shown a message to follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole to see the true Wonderland. What is the Matrix?

Ever had that strange feeling everything wasn't as it should be? That you were being watch yet couldn't find the source? Duo had that same feeling all his life and now he finds out just what was going on.

Warning: 1x2 ahead!

Dedication: To all my readers out there reading my best work to date. Please enjoy it and don't be shy, e-mail me! I love feed back! Thank you for reading! ^.^

******

__

"The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

That stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king,

But lived and died a scrubby thing...

Good timber does not grow in ease.

The stronger wind, the tougher trees..."

By Douglas Malloch

******

The moon was shining brightly in the sky above the shabby apartment building, cop cars could be heard along with the passing NJ transit train. It was in the middle of the night in the ghetto of Asbury Park, New Jersey. The building was across the train tracks on eighth avenue, a few blocks away from the Burger King and McDonalds. It was the bad side of town, where gangs, drug dealers, and the like, live in the once great town.

A boy around the age of sixteen was in the threshold of a terrible nightmare. He was twisting and turning in the small cot that was his bed; the white covers threatened to trap him in their grasp. The boy's eyes snapped open with fear shining clearly in the violet depths. He stared at the ceiling, not recognizing where he was for a moment. He sighed and relaxed, the fear dissolved away until only annoyance showed. He turned his head to the side and glanced at the blinking light of the clock on his bedside. Duo groaned and rubbed his eyes with his hands. It was around three o'clock in the morning and it looked like he wouldn't get more sleep any time soon.

He slowly climbed out of his cot and brushed his bangs from his eyes. He stood straight and stretched his arms high above his head, yawning tiredly. What a weird dream he had! He had been at a club, dancing away until he saw these guys in the type of suits that would suggest F.B.I. He fled in the dream because he was afraid he had been found out by the government. He thought would totally ruin his reputation as a good hacker. He grabbed his clothes as he opened his door quietly and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

He was a well-known hacker, famous for being one of the few to tack a virus on the I.R.S and F.B.I systems and get out alive without getting caught. His hacking name was Deathscythe; it was a name for the God of Death he made up. He thought it was fitting, he brought down many companies with a virus just like death that brings down many people with a plague. He grinned cheerfully and stepped into the bathroom and closed the door. He dropped his clothes and stripped down, then climbed into the shower and turned it on.

He remembered next that the guys had amazing speed; he himself was one of the fastest people in the A.P High, which was why he was on track. But the amazing thing about it was the black suited people moved like he was standing still. Then the people knocked him out. He grabbed the shampoo bottle and squirted some into his hand. He began to wash his hair.

He 'woke up' in the dream in a white room. Two agents of the F.B.I stood in front of him and asked him questions like if he would help them in their cause, or some bull shit like that. He didn't buy it, besides he worked alone. Something that really freaked him out happened then; one of the agents pulled out this weird mechanical thing and it started to squirm. He tried to get away, but one agent held him down while the other lifted up his shirt. The agent holding the mechanical thing that he didn't recognized, laid it on his stomach, and then the thing squirmed and started to enter his body through his belly button. God! It felt so damn real, that was the scary part. He ducked his head under the flow of water and washed out the shampoo. He sighed and grabbed the conditioner.

That was when he woke up in the real world. He chuckled to himself as he scrubbed the lotion into his long hair. He was never going to eat cold pizza before bed again, it was giving him weird dreams! He washed out the conditioner and turned off the shower.

He was dressed in record time in his black clothes and brushed out his hair before separating it into three sections and braided it. He glanced at the clock, Four A.M in the morning. He grinned to himself as he thought. It was perfect! He had at least three hours to hang out on the net before he had to eat and head to school. He walked over to his desk and sat down, booting up his laptop on AOL. He noted no one was on, and grinned. Only insane people like him were on at the ungodly hour of four. He loaded up one of his favorite sites on screen.

His computer screen went black.

He narrowed his eyes and started typing on the keyboard. He at first thought maybe it shut down or something. But then after he pressed the [esc] key a few times and tried the [ctrl], [alt], [delete] keys a few times too, but nothing was working. He fumed. Someone was messing with his computer! How dare someone hack a hacker! He was pissed off. No one fucked with Shinigami. It's like, the worst insult known to man to get your own laptop hacked by another hacker. A green cursor blinked at the top of the screen. He watched it closely as letters scrolled across the screen.

__

What is the Matrix?

Duo blinked. The Matrix? He wasn't sure, but he his interest in the answer was rising. He shifted in his seat and thought for a moment. He frowned and typed rapidly on his keyboard to give his reply to the hacker.

**__**

Who are you?

More green letters scrolled off the screen again.

__

Follow the white rabbit down the rabbit hole to find the answers you seek.

The laptop screen turned black again then returned to the AOL screen like nothing had happened. He ran system checks but there were no bugs and no viruses. Hell, he couldn't even trace the bastard that hacked in his computer! Whoever he was, he was good. He grinned and leaned back in his chair and started at the computer. He had no idea what rabbits had to do with finding out what the Matrix was, but he had to admit; he wanted to know. That guy had plucked his curiosity just right, and now he was hooked.

He spent a few more hours on the net checking out his favorite web sites before he shut down and got up. He glanced at the clock and noted he only had 10 minutes to get to school. Duo grabbed his black baseball hat and book bag before running down stairs grabbing a piece of toast. "Bye Aunt Helen!" He called over his shoulder as his aunt just waved at him.

He ran down the block and crossed the train tracks. He kept running on the sidewalk, waving to people he knew before he entered the high school. He chewed on his piece of blackened toast as he headed to his locker. He grinned at the beautiful girl hanging out next to his red locker. "Sup, girl! You waitin' for me all this time?"

Hilde laughed at punched him lightly in the shoulder. "You know it!" She said cheerfully.

Duo grinned and opened his locker to pull out his books. He was failing almost every class, but he could pass them with ease if he felt like it. The courses were just too easy for him. If it were up to him, he'd go to college but he didn't have the money for it. He took a glance his cousin's way before shutting his locker. "Come on, babe. Let's get to class before Mr. G has a heart attack. I want to be able to see it when he drops!" He grinned wickedly and headed down the hall with Hilde in tow. He stopped in front of one black kid. "Hey my man! Word up, Solo?" They lightly hit each other's top of the fist with their own in greeting.

"Nuttin much, bro. How was your break?" Replied Solo.

"Too short!" Duo chuckled and smirked. "Gotta get to class man, Mr. G has me on his hit list. Word as bond, yo!"

His friend Solo nodded. "I feel for ya, peace out!"

He started walking again and headed into one of the classrooms with Hilde. He slid into his desk in the back row and relaxed his head on top of his desk. Time for a little nap in History.

******

Duo walked down the street towards the bar called the Stone Pony later that night. It was the most elite bar in all of Asbury Park. He glanced up at the picture of a white pony on the black runway roof top. Celebrities used to come here, like Bruce Springsteen. Hell, he thought to himself, he heard once that back in the early Nineteen hundreds, people use to walk down Asbury's boardwalk in ball gowns and tuxedos. He snorted, well it wasn't much to look at now. All around the Stone Pony, there was unfinished buildings and run down boardwalk games. 

He walked past the bouncer with ease and went over to the bar table. He sat on the stool and ordered himself a rum coke on the rocks. Fake I.Ds were so easy to make, being a hacker of his expertese made it too easy to go get himself drunk after a bad day. Mr. G had given him detention and had called Aunt Helen. He had gotten in trouble and was banned from using his laptop. Life just sucked at the moment

"Hard night?" Mumured a girl next to him. He glanced over at her. She had long blonde hair and was dressed in all white leather. He gave her a smirk and looked down at the coke the bartender gave him.

"You could say that." said Duo.

"My name's Rabbit. What's yours?" 

Duo looked over at her as the words came back to him, _'Follow the white rabbit..'_. He noted her tattoo high on her arm which had a small albino rabbit on it. "Duo, Duo Maxwell." He took a swig of his rum coke drink. "You don't seem to be the type to be in a bar, Rabbit."

"Neither do you. I know a nice place to hang out at, if you want to come." She replied off-handingly. Duo eyed her in mistrust. He just met the girl and she's inviting him somewhere? But he remembered the hacker's words. He decided he would follow her and if she got any bright ideas he'd leave right away. After all, he had his knives with him; you didn't grow up in the ghetto and not learn that you should be a little causious around people.

Duo raises an eyebrow at Rabbit. "Alright."

The two stood up and headed out the Stone Pony. Duo walked slightly behind her, he didn't like people behind him for obvious reasons. He sighed mentally. He must be nuts to follow a girl he just met to a place he didn't know. But he always was a little bit off mentally anyway, this just proved it.

Suddenly a black, sleek care drove up along side of them and opened up to show the inside. The girl, Rabbit, poked a gun in his back when she slipped behind him while he was distracted. "Get in."

Duo narrowed his eyes but not wanted to get shot, got into the car. Rabbit kept the gun on him as she climbed into the car and next to him. "Sorry about the gun, but it's for security reasons." She said to him. He didn't trust her at all. A boy his age with blonde hair and blue-green eyes held up this weird looking gun. "He's bugged."

Rabbit grabbed Duo's shirt and lifted it out of his pants. "Hey, hey! What the hell do you think you are you doing?! I don't go for that shit, lady!" He cried out in shock. 

The blonde hair boy put to gun over his belly button and looked up at Duo with sympathetic eyes. "This will feel funny for a minute." That was all he said before a weird shock spread through Duo's body starting at his belly button. The same mechanical thing from his dream was pulled out of his body into a little glass container (squished against the glass) in the back part of the gun.

"Holy shit! That was the thing from my dream! What the hell?!" Duo quickly reached into his sleeve and pulled out a knife but was stopped by the blonde boy. "I'm Sandrock that," the blond boy pointed to the driver in the front. "Is Heavyarms, and I know your Deathscythe but call yourself Shinigami. We aren't here to hurt you, we want to show you what the Matrix is."

Duo glanced at the boy in mistrust. Having a gun on you isn't what he thought of as trusting. But what the hacker said on his computer made him curious; he was going to get the answer. "What do you know about the Matrix?"

The blonde boy, Sandrock, smiled at him slightly. "It is hard to explain, we're taking you to someone who might say it better then I could. " Duo tried to remember where he had heard that name before. Suddenly, it came to him. "Wait, your not THE Sandrock are you? The guy who hacked into the I.R.S and unloaded a virus into the system?" He said in shock. "The one who disappeared a few days after he did it?"

"I am."

Blinking, Duo just sat there for the rest of the ride thinking quietly to himself. So he was in the car with one of his idols, how cool was that? Not too cool since he had a gun to his back or how he had that mechanical thing in him from his dream. He grabbed his braid unconsiously for support. He didn't like it, he didn't know what was going on. He was totally confused and tense. He wanted to know what this Matrix thing was, but he didn't want to die for it. Curiousity killed the cat and he didn't want to end up as that cat.

The car slowed down and stopped in front of an old church that was on third ave. It was ruin down and closed up because of repairs but it never opened up again. Duo glanced at the graffidi on the walls of the church. He was baptised here; just before his parents died. There was a shooting down the street when a drug deal went bad. He was being taken care of by his aunt until they got back from the store. But their car got caught up in the fighting and they died by stray bullets. He was only three months old.

"Come on, it's not much farther." Sandrock smiled at him gently and Duo walked up the steps of a church he hadn't seen in 16 years. The two others, Rabbit and Heavyarms, followed behind the two boys. The group walked up the steps and headed down the hall. Duo glanced up at the paintings of Heaven and Hell; he saw Death himself with his scythe in hand pointing his bony finger at the suffering souls in the fire. He thought it looked pretty cool, the whole bony finger thing. He didn't really thing death looked like that, he looked like whatever you thought he would be like.

The group stopped in front of two wooden doors. "Just go through here," the bang boy with green eyes named Heavyarms stated to the hacker. "The one who will give you the answers is there."

"Just remember that he knows more about you then you want him to." Added Sandrock.

Duo raises an eyebrow in question at Sandrock before he opened up the doors and walked in. His eyes widened as he stopped when he noticed two leather red chairs with a fireplace to the side buring some logs. The doors shut behind him, that should have scared him, but he didn't mind. There was another person in the room with his back to Duo; a boy that looked to be about his age with wild brown hair that went every which way. The boy was decked out with a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt. He had black combat boots and a long black coat that was untied and framing the boy's body nicely. 

The boy turned around and stared at him through blue-tinted glasses. Duo grinned cheerfully again and walked over. "Hiya! I'm Duo, Duo Maxwell! I run, I hide, but I never tell a lie. That's me in a nut shell! And you are?"

The boy stared at him. "I'm Wing." He replied in monotone. He moved over to sit down in one of the chairs and motioned Duo to do the same. He shrugged to himself and walked over to the chairs. He plopped down onto the leather chair in a relaxed position. 

Wing tilted his head to the side slightly, and stared at Duo. "You have been hunting for a truth your entire life, and it's driving you insane." He predicted unexpectingly. Duo was almost stunned - almost. For the strangest reason, he had come to expect Wing to know how he felt. It was irrational and illogical of course, but it seemed as if those things were swiftly becoming his reality.

Duo stared up into Wing's deep blue eyes and searched them for reassurance. To his amazement, he found it. "What is the Matrix?" He finally managed to get out of his mouth, awe and reverence lacing every syllable. 

Wing nodded in Duo's main direction, his face almost expressionless - almost. He leaned back in the chair at looked at the braid boy squarely. He took out a small case from his pocket and held it in his hands. "All around you. Everything you see, touch, taste, is the Matrix. But no one can explain the Matrix to you. You have to be shown." 

He took out a small metal box. "The Matrix," he began with what could have been remorse - or more so hatred, "is a hoax; an elaborate mind game played with you as the main tool." He leaned closer to Duo. He was intimidated, but did not bother to move away. Instead, he just sat there twisting the edge of his shirt to keep his nervous hands busy. Wing continued to turn the box in his fingers and went on.

  
"It is there when you sleep and when you wake. It is the streets you walk down and the people you meet. It is whatever is real to you. Emotions, life, death, your friends, and your family are all a part of it. And, there is only one way for this reality to be for you what it is for me - a tightly knit lie."   


When he had finished, he looked at the braided hacker, watching for a reaction. Duo was shocked - astounded, and yet somewhat skeptical. Then suddenly, he had the strangest urge to know more - to know the truth. Damn, it was that curiousity that killed the cat again.

  
"What is the lie, Wing?" He asked with curiously scared eyes.

  
Wing's eyes fell deliberately, almost sorrowfully but he was still expressionless. Then, he picked up his head to look at him straight on. Finally, he spoke once again. "That you are free; that you are here, now. The truth is Deathscythe, that you are a slave trapped inside your own mind," he stated. 

Duo gaped at him, in utter shock. "Well, damn! What do I say to something like that?" He breathed, more to himself than anyone else. Wing leaned back again, the shiny box still twisting in his hands.

  
"You need not say anything at all," he said clearly. "Just understand one thing."  


Duo sat silently, waiting in anticipation, not really sure if he should answer him or not. Wing did not say anything, but opened the tiny silver box. In his hand two objects fell, which he could not tell what they were. But, it was apparent that they were blue and red in color. He shifted one each to different palms and finally spoke yet one more time, in that tone that makes one feel unsure if his news is good or heart-breaking.

  
"Once you choose, there is no going back." He said clearly. Duo nodded at that, with somewhat of an attempt to laugh and grinned as if he knew what the risks were.

  
"Point of No Return," he murmured to himself. Wing, not hearing comment, went on. "Everything about your life is going to change, but I can't guarantee that you will appreciate it very much."

  
Duo shrugged, trying to act as casual as possible. "What's the choice?"

  
Wing put his hands before him, balled up in loose fists. Deathscythe tried to gaze through his blue-tinted glasses to read his expression, but it was utterly useless. His lips were a straight line until he spoke. He opened his left hand and the object inside and Duo assumed to be some sort of a pill.  


"You take the blue pill - the show's all over. We both go back wherever we came from, and you believe whatever you wish." He paused to open his other hand. Inside was another pill - identical in fact besides in color. This one was red. "You take the red pill - the show goes on, and I show you the line between your reality and mine."

  
As Duo sat there, he felt his jaw about to hit his lap in shock. Could this really be happening to him? Just last night he had this weird dream and now his life was twisting into a new path without his control. How could it be so? He exhaled sharply, trying to decide what he should say - no, what he should choose. The answer was simple enough, but the question still remained - Was he willing to take the risk to find the truth?

Duo thought about it. On one hand, his life really sucked. He went to the worst school in New Jersey and was an outsider because he was one of the smartest computer wiz kids in the school. But here was a chance to find out about the Matrix, to find out the truth. On the other hand, like the guy Wing said, he could take the blue pill and wake up like this was all another strange dream. 

After he managed to take in one more deep breath and swallow the lump that was more swiftly forming in his throat, he leaned toward Wing's hand. He still wasn't sure what he was exactly doing, or why he was doing it at all. The only thing he knew was that this was by some freak coincidence the right thing for him to do. Yet, even as he was about to take up the red-colored pill into his own hand, none of it made the least bit of sense. Wing, who had been watching him, must have seen the mixture of doubt and confusion inside his flitting eyes.

"Remember," he warned Duo, "all I can offer you is the truth. It won't be easy; but it will be real."

  
He gazed deep into Wing's eyes. Duo could sense there was something he had not yet told him; the same something that would make this other life so uneasy. Although, the calling of his conscience was mush louder than the sense he acquired from the man before him. He thought for one more second and grabbed his braid in support. Yes, this was the right thing; this was where he was supposed to be - what he was supposed to be doing. Without the chance to doubt again, he snatched the red pill from Wing. He nearly threw the pill down his throat, while managing to gulp down the entire contents of the glass that had sat on the table only a few moments before. After nearly choking in his haste, he returned his gaze to Wing.

Wing stood up and started walking to the next room and Duo got up quickly and followed him. "Hey wait! Slow down a bit, man. You walk too fast!"

"Shut up, baka. Follow me." Replied Wing in that monotone again. Duo blinked and thought, what did baka mean? He then pouted but followed the boy to another room where some machinery that looked like it popped out of some science fiction movie was hooked up.

"Sit in the chair over there."

Duo walked over and laid down in the chair that was giving him dentist trip flashbacks. He hated dentists with a passion. He did not like the fact someone was messing around inside his mouth and could be doing billions of things he wouldn't be able to see until it was done. He glanced over at Heavyarms. "Whatcha doin?"

"Getting ready to trace the signal online." Replied the quiet boy.

Duo rolled his eyes, he had no idea what the hell that meant. He glanced over at the mirror next to him and he frowned in confusion as he stared at the reflecting surface. It was rippling. He moved his hand over and touched the surface. It rippled more and started to crawl up his hand. His eyes widened. It was so cold!

He jerked his hand away but it kept crawling. "W-What the hell!" He cried out watching the cold liquid engulf his body. He started to hyperventilate as the liquid was running up to his neck now; he was shivering.

"Come on 'Arms! Have you found him yet?" The voices sounded far away to Duo, like they were from another world.

"Searching." 

"We got a lock on--"

The liquid traveled into Duo's mouth and over his face. He felt like he was choking but then it suddenly disappeared.

******

Duo's eyes snapped open in a pinkish liquid. His eyes widened when he saw the black thing attached to his mouth. He weakly lifted his hands and pulled as hard as he could. His gag reflex kicked in and helped push out the black tube as another black thing detached itself from his head. He choked on the liquid. Got to get out, get free! He cried out in his mind as he struggled to push against the pink ceiling. It ripped and Duo pulled himself out the liquid, gasping for breath as he leaned over, dripping the pink liquid over the side of the pod. He was so tired, he thought as his eyes started to droop.

He heard a mechanical sounding 'crunch' of rusting metal joints and he lifted his head lightly and looked around with wonder. Where was he anyway? He saw machines that looked like giant spider crawling on a mechanical tree while picking some of the pods (which looked really looked like messy chewy pink jelly beans incased in black shelling), and placing them somewhere else. But his mind recoiled in horror when he saw little babies in pink jelly bean wannabes like his. Suddenly there was a flushing sound like the kind you hear when you flush a toliet and he gasped as his body was pulled down into the opening that appeared in his pod thing that he used to be trapped in. His body slide down the slick tunnel while he tried to grab onto something in his panic.

He slid out the tunnel and out the opening that dropped him down twenty feet as splashed, he landed in a river of waste. He coughed, sputtered, and gasped trying not to drown while waving his arms frantically but slowly the arms stopped working for him correctly. His arms were sore and he was getting tired fast, too fast for his liking. He started sinking since he was too tired to keep his head above the liquid anymore. Above him a light was shown on him and that was the last thing he saw before he blacked out.

******

Duo had no idea where he was during the brief times he gained semi-conciousness from the black bliss of his mind. Sometimes he felt he was on a hard surface like a table, other times he felt like he had no clothes on in a cold room. A lot of the times when he gained concious thought when he was between that place of sleeping and awake. He heard voices, not whole conversations, but just one-liners and parts of sentences. It was hard for him to focus on the voices, his mind seemed as if in a blur. Weither it was because he felt so tired or was probably drugged out of his mind, it could have been both most of the time. The parts of coversations he _did _catch and _could_ remember didn't make any sense. He couldn't fit them together.

" - recovering rapidly and - "

" - do _normal _people have that eye color? - "

" - see the _real_ world Deathscythe - "

" - your beautiful - "

" - have you on the _good_ stuff - "

He didn't know how long he had been the way he was, half-awake and half-sleeping. He knew he shouldn't have taken that damn pill! It must of been some coma drug or something. Maybe they kidnapped him and took him somewhere and are doing mean, weird, experiments on his body while he was half-dead while giving his body parts to aliens in space. 

If he could have, he would have rolled his eyes at his thoughts. Sometimes, he thought. His imagination ran away with his thoughts; Wing didn't seem like the type of guy to do something like that to a poor street kid like him.

Atleast he didn't think Wing would do something like that to a poor street kid.

Slowly he regained conciousness again, but this time he was on something softer then that hard metal surface and had clothes on. He slowly opened his eyes to see a black metal ceiling to greet him. He sat up quickly and looked around the room. It was plain and looked more like a prison cell then an actual room. He looked down at his clothes and saw it was just a simple shirt that was a few sizes too big and pants that looked to be hand-me-downs.

He cocked his head to the side and noticed how light his head seemed to feel; his three foot braid made his head feel slightly heavier usually. He reached up tentively with his hands and his eyes widened as he felt his hair was only two inches long. His frantic fingers felt towards the back of his head for his braid and terror lit up in his eyes as he felt something metal on the back of his skull.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY HEAD?!" He yelled in shock. What the hell did they do to him while he was knocked out? He wanted his damn hair back and what the fuck was that metal thing in the back of his head?!

The blonde boy - Sandrock, he remembered - ran in with a Chinese-looking guy he didn't reconise. Duo shot up out of bed and glared at Sandrock. "What the hell did you do to me! What happened to my hair and what the fuck is on the back of my head?!" Duo leaped at the blonde boy ready to beat some answers out of him but the Chinese guy had slipped behind him when Duo wasn't paying attention and grabbed him to keep him in place. He struggled to get out of the guy's grip. He was stronger then he looked and he felt weaker then he should be, Duo realized when he tried to get the Chinese boy off him.

"Deathscythe, calm down!" Said the blonde. "We didn't do anything to you. Please let us explain before you go nuts on us, okay?"

Duo looked at him in mistrust then glared at the Chinese boy who let him go and the boy smirked at him. He followed Sandrock and the other kid out the door down some hall. He kept staring at Sandrock because he didn't look like he did before; he looked pale and thin. Thinner then he did before and he didn't dress as nice.

They walked into what looked like a lunch room of some sort and everyone was eating something white and lumpy that he didn't find appetizing at all by the looks of it. The people he didn't reconise looked up and smiled at him in greeting.

"Deathscythe, we are the crew of the Gundanium." Stated Sandrock proudly. "You know me, Rabbit, Heavyarms, and our captain, Wing." He nodded to each person when they they looked at him. "The Chinese boy is Altron, he sometimes calls himself Shenlong." The boy who held him back earlier nodded to him. "Over there with the white hair and blue eyes, is Epyon." 

"Why do you call me Deathscythe instead of Duo?" He raised an eyebrow at Sandrock. He was much calmer now. "And you haven't explained what happened to my beautiful hair I spend so many fucking hours on keeping it shiny nor the connector in the back of my head. At least, that's what it feels like. A computer connector."

He saw Sandrock's surprised gaze and he shrugged sheepishly. "I like to fiddle with mechanical stuff and can fix almost anything that breaks. I've overloaded my laptop connectors too many times to count so I know what one feels like."

"Duo is the name the Matrix gave you," said a voice to his left. "Hackers like yourself, like us, give ourselves our own names when we hack into computers. When we disconnect from the Matrix, we take up our hacker names as our new names for our freedom." Wing looked at him with an intense gaze as he spoke in monotone again that made him want to strangle Wing so he would talk normally.

He frowned and looked slightly confused. "I still don't see what the hell this Matrix thing is." He replied, noticing everyone suddenly got real quiet after he spoke. Hmm, this Matrix thing must be pretty bad for it to shut up these people so quickly.

Wing and the others got up from the glop they were eatting. "It's time." He said, looking in Duo's direction. "I'll show you exactly what the Matrix is."

"Finally! Geez! I thought I'd have to wait until I'm old with gray hairs. I hate suspence, ya know." He replied as he followed the others into this strang room with more equiptment that looked straight out from a science fiction movie. He could feel a crazed excitement run through him. What he wouldn't give to take apart this stuff and figure out how to put it together again! He almost shivered at the thought. He saw those chairs - the ones that gave him dentist flashbacks - and raised an eyebrow when Wing sat in one and the Chinese kid, Altron, motioned him to do sit down in one of the chairs. He grinned and sat down next to Wing's.

"This will feel uncomfortable for a moment." He stated then suddenly he felt Altron's arm move and he then felt a sharp pain at the base of his skull and closed his eyes. 

When he opened them again he was in a white room; a _really_ white room. The kind of room that could blind you from the brightness. It was like an empty void with nothing in it. He turned around looking all around himself when he spoted Wing. He was dressed like he was before, jeans, the coat, the boots, but the glasses weren't on. Duo felt a familiar weight on his head and reached around and saw his braid. He grabbed it in shock. "My hair! I got my hair back!" He looked down and noticed he was wearing what he wore before he was drugged, blacked out, whatever it was.

"What you see is your ISI; Internal Self Image. It's what your mind pictures you as appearing." Wing looked at him. "What you see now around you is the loading program. Here we can get what we need when we go into the Matrix."

"But what is the Matrix?" He folded his arms in fustration. It was no use, the guy talked in riddles. He noticed that two leather chairs and a television was in front of him, it wasn't there before. He saw Wing sit down in one of them and he causiously walked over and felt the chair. His eyes widened when he could feel the fine leather.

"The Matrix is the top of the line, virtual reality." He paused as if concidering a term Duo could understand. "It simulates the world that Earth use to be."

He sat down in the chair. "But it feels so real!" He replied in wonder. No V.R system in his time could create something like that. It was crappy and cheesy, nothing compared to what he had been in before.

"What is real? What you can see? Feel? Touch? What your nerves send in messages to your brain in eletric pulses up your spine? All that could simply be programed to trigger your nerves to send false messages to your brain, giving you the illusion of reality." Wing clicked on the T.V with a remote and it showed the ruin of New York City. "The Matrix is controlled by A.I. In what we have figured out; A.I were created in 2001 A.D and from the reports we've been able to hack out of their systems it's now 2101. It's been one century since the real war began between Man and Machine.

When humans first created A.I, it was a major accomplishment for technology. At first, they only controlled little things like traffic and cars. Then as the A.I grew smarter, we grew more arrogant and let them take more and more control over things. Soon they grew smarter then us and figured out we weren't needed. They tried to destory us." 

Wing clicked a button to show a closer view of the sky and suddenly they were in the image; at least that was what it looked like to Duo. They were on the rocky surface of Earth that looked dried out and ruined. "A.I ran on solar energy and we thought that if we destoried the sky, we would destory them." Wing looked to the sky and Duo followed his gaze and saw the orange, scorched sky, that used to be blue at one time. 

"But as I said, they were smarter on us. They figured out that the human body can produce more energy then a battery." He smirked in irony. "They captured us and turned us into slaves. Farming us for the energy they needed and they built more of themselves. The machines came up with a way to create a illusion of reality called the Matrix to keep our minds occupided while as we grew and aged; our energy was harnessed so they could become stronger. That's when the war started."

He stared at Wing in horror. How could he say that so calmly? How could that guy, Wing, sit there emotionless when billions of people are trapped in a full life-time video game with no cheat codes and only one life. "G-g-get me outta here." He said shakely. "GET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!" He cried out into the white void that appeared again.

He felt dizzy then blinked and noticed he was in the science fiction movie, machinary room again. Everyone was staring at him worriedly and he couldn't take it. As soon as the cord was disconnect from his skull he bolted from the room and ran into what he assumed to be his room and slammed the door shut and sat in the corner. He curled himself up in the small ball like a child and stared forward not seeing anything.

He sat like that for a long time.

******

He heard that polite knocking again at his door. He knew who was there, Sandrock. But he didn't want to talk to anyone right now. Finding out that you were being used as a battery for things not even alive tended to tramatize people quite a bit. Duo - no, he reminded himself, he was Deathscythe; Shinigami now - stared at the wall replaying back all his memories of the life he had in the Matrix. Fake! His mind cried out in horror, it was all fake!

God, why did he take the red pill? Why? Why! He cried to himself in his mind. He would never cry anywhere else. Boys don't cry; real men don't cry. He was a man, damnit! He knew why he did take that damn pill, oh he did. He knew there was something not right with the world; how it all seemed so fake. He knew if he had a chance to change history he would still take this path. Shinigami was no machine's power up! He was his own person and he'd be damned if he let some machines use his hard earned energy to power up their circuts.

The knocking came again and he ignored it. He wouldn't answer the door until he felt like it. He really didn't want to face any of them at the moment. He especially didn't want to face Wing. Wing, who told him with no emotion how humans were slaves to their own creations had not showed one damn emotion. Not one freaking one! He didn't want to see those cold blue eyes, he couldn't see them. He knew if he took one look into those eyes, he'd break down. He would cry, not for himself, but for the humans still trapped in the Matrix and for Wing. He would cry for Wing because he couldn't do it himself for whatever reason.

"Deathscythe, please open up." Came a soft voice from the other side of the door.

"Go away. Leave me alone." He spoke quietly.

He heard someone speaking to Sandrock in hush tones then before it could regesture in his mind, someone kicked his door open. Altron appeared through the door way and walked over to him with a purpose. He grabbed Deathscythe by the shirt and lifted him up off the floor and slammed him up against the wall. "Baka! Are you going to sit here and moap all day?"

Deathscythe glared at him and Altron continued: "I went through what your going through now," he said quietly in a slight Chinese accent. "I felt I had no reason to live because there was no justice in this. Living like rats hiding ourselves from_ machines_." He spat in hatred at the word. "But do you think you'll be saving any lives of those still trapped in the Matrix by sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself? While they are still trapped as living batteries?" He let go of Deathscythe's shirt and stared at him for a moment, his eyes burning with certainy that stunned the god of death. 

"Think on what I said, Shinigami." He turned on his heel and walked out the room without so much as a glance back in Deathscythe's direction.

He slumped down the wall and stared at his hands for a while in deep thought. What about Hilde? He asked himself. Are you going to let your cousin sit there being drained for power? What about Solo and Aunt Helen? His eyes narrowed as his eyes reflected determination. He pushed himself up and walked out his room, ignoring the stares he was getting as he walked into the room where he learned the truth.

He tapped on Epyon's shoulder - the man was sitting down at the operator desk - and he turned around. Epyon looked surprised as he stared at Duo. "What can I do for you?" He questioned the boy.

"What do I have to do to get back in and save people?" Duo stated more then he asked as he stared at the older white hair man.

In the back of the room, Altron nodded to himself. He had gotten through to the new crewmate and now it was up to the others to shape him into one of the members of the resistance. He noticed Sandrock smiled at him in thanks and he rolled his eyes. He was doing it for the good of humankind, not for the idiot himself.

A while later on the ship, Heavyarms watched as the new boy; Deathscythe, suck up all the training and kept wanting more. It had been going on for about two hours now, he would load in a disk, zap information into Deathscythe's brain, then he'd ask for more. He saw the boy was sweating slightly but everytime he would glance over, the boy looked at him like he was waiting for more. He was sucking up all the information like a sponge; it was quite a sight to behold. He glanced over at the clock on the wall and looked at the new boy.

"I think that's enough for today. It's lunch time." He stated as the boy's violet eyes snapped open and he grinned cheerfully at the mention of food.

"Bring on the food, man! I could eat a horse by now!" 

Heavyarms got up from the operator desk and walked over. He didn't have the heart to mention to the boy that horses were extinct now, it would only depress him further. Heavyarms pulled out the cord and the energentic teen raced out the room and headed to the kitchen for some slop. He smirked slightly, he could imagion how hungry the poor boy was.

"How is he doing?" A voice asked from the shadows. Wing stepped out into his view and he nodded slightly in his captain's direction. 

"He is doing well," he said quietly. "His progress is simply amazing. Perhaps he should be dojo tested now and maybe the jump afterward?" Wing nodded slightly and looked in the energentic teen's direction; Heavyarms noted the slight pride and caring the captain had in his eyes for the boy. While Heavyarms face stayed emotionless; inside he was grinning like a cat. Maybe the captian's ice heart could be cracked by the cheerful boy's outgoing personality. He thought about it and decided to tell Sandrock more about it later tonight in their room.

******

He grinned as he ate the digusting glop they called lunch with his new friends in the kitchen. They aren't like the ones in the Matrix he had; he felt more connected to them then to Hilde or to Solo. Hilde and Solo both weren't in his world like these people were. His old friends couldn't understand his fasination of machines or why he spent hours decoding each new interent he got a free trial from. Don't get him wrong, he loved them with all his heart. But they didn't get it.

He supposed his fasination with machines had all started when he had gotten his first video game called Mortal Kombat at seven years old. He saw how the figures moved and how they did their attacks but it sparked his curiousity of how it would form from just codes of numbers. He was a genius in math or so all the adults he met told him. All his younger teachers, before he learned to hide his ability, said he was the next Enstine with the way he could calculate quickly the numbers in his mind of how far something was from him or how much power he would need for that.

After the first few months of playing the game he could actually sometimes see glimpses of the green numbers that made up the figures even though he couldn't understand how he could see it. He would study the numbers carefully of how they were set up and what they did each time and by the age of ten he created his own video game called Millenium with the new computer his parents gave him for Christmas. He had used his excellent mathamatic skills to rewrite the entire game and create a whole new set of variables using algebraic equations; he had gotten the idea from the video game of using matrices to control the next stage of the games. It was fun making the game and since he made one he felt he didn't need another, so he looked for a new challenge. 

When he found the internet, a whole new set of challenges awaited him. He learned the skills of a hacker and when he turned fifteen he sucessfully hacked into the I.R.S and the F.B.I and uploaded a virus onto their system without a single mistake. Infact that was only a few months before the crew sent the message to him.

His friends in the Matrix like Solo, didn't get the thrill of a new challenge like he did. He suppose he was always a math geek, but he did play sports and he loved basketball. That was how he met Solo, in a basketball tryout in a catholic school on First Ave called "Our Lady of Mt. Carmel". Duo could admit he did dress kind of geeky back then and when he walked into the tryouts Solo had been making fun of him. He was well known to be studying code books on the playground instead of playing like a normal kid. But he remembered the look on Solo's face when he took of his coat and challenge him to a match.

Solo had thought that since he was known as a geek and was short and too thin for his age that he would be a push over. But when he actually got around Solo without trouble and swooshed a three-pointer, that was when it got serious. The game went on for twenty minutes while the rest of the tryout kids watched. Finally Duo had won by one point before the coach told them to stop. Solo seemed depressed at losing to a geek so he grinned cheerfully and winked. He remembered what he said to him next.

__

"What? Are you giving up already? Geez! Don't give up now man! I'll loose all the respect I had for ya if you quit now."

They became friends after that and Solo showed him all the ropes of getting into the in-crowd. Duo stopped reading on the playground and started to play football and other games with the boys. Soon everyone forgot he use to be a geek and he became one of the most popular kids in the school. But he didn't feel connected to Solo, he didn't feel real to him at all.

Not like these people do except for Rabbit, she felt off somehow. Not real. She was acting and Duo had no clue as to why she was, but he wouldn't be fooled. He noted how Sandrock would be edgy around her when she appeared, he wondered if the blond felt it too. He would have to talk to him later.

He chatted with everyone and tried to get a rise out of Altron just for the fun of it. He wanted the guy to relax some, he seemed too tense. Although they were fighting a war, the guy needed to know he was still a damn kid and couldn't take the stress forever like this.

Later after lunch was done, Wing challenged him to a dojo match. He said that the real training would begin now. Now here he was again, in the damn dentist chair! He sighed and gripped the armrest as he cleared his mind and went over the martial arts he had imprinted on his brain. Hmm, he thought. What's the point of knowing so many art forms if you couldn't meld them together somehow? In a fight he knew it would be hard to switch from say, Karate, to Kung-fu without upsetting your balance which would give your enemy an opening to attack. He made a few quick mathematic calculations in his mind and grinned wickedly as he figured out what he could do if he adjusted his style.

He felt that sharp pain for a split second at the base of his skull until he was in a Japanese dojo and had a gi on. He saw Wing standing across from him with a sensei type air about him.

"Are you ready?" He said flatly.

He grinned. "Whenever you are, man!"

Outside the program, Epyon smirked. "Wing challenged Deathscythe! Get here fast or you'll miss it!" He yelled into the corridor of the ship as he watched the green coding, glancing at the visual once in a while. Everyone came rushing in as soon as he finished his sentence and crowded around him wanting to see the new kid's fight against the captain. Epyon was sure that if they had any, they would all be eating popcorn right now like they're watching a movie in the Matrix.

The two bowed to each other in formalty. "Begin." Wing said as he got into a stance. Duo slid into an unreconisable stance with his arms behind his back and he looked totally relaxed. 

"What's he doing?" Rabbit looked confused as she gazed at Duo's stance. "He's totally unguarded!"

"Watch." Heavyarms said quietly as he studied the new boy. "Don't be so quick to judge."

Wing attacked him with normal speed at first so the boy would get use to it. Since he was unguarded he was sure that the idiot would get hit, yet at the last second the boy twisted back on his heel and spin kicked Wing in the stomach before he backhanded away from Wing and flipped landing on his feet as slid into another stance. One hand in the air, slightly unfolded and the other close to his chest and his feet were spread apart, the left foot in front of the right foot.

"What! But he was totally unguarded! He shouldn't have been able to do that to Wing." Cried out Rabbit as she stared in shock. She had never seen that in any of the martial art styles she studied! It was most unusual.

"Deathscythe is smarter then he appears to be," replied Altron, who surprised everyone with speaking outloud. "He knew that switching styles would cause someone to loose balance in a fight and knew one style would limit his attacking and defending capiblities." His tone showed slight respect to it. "He is melding the techniques into one style, it's possible but unreliable and unreadable in fight." He gazed back at the screen with a smirk. "He's using his genius in mathematics to plan out his style, you saw his records and know just how smart he is in math."

"But," she said slightly confused as she hardened her gaze. "That shouldn't be possible."

"Street fighting." Heavyarms said as he glanced at her. "People who street fight do the same thing, they use all sorts of different techniques that don't belong all to one style. That's why it's so dangerous to fight a street fighter."

"Shh!" Epyon looked annoyed. "Stop talking, you'll miss the fight!"

"Come on, Wing! Fight me for real, man. I don't go for games!" He shouted at the captain as he watched the boy slide into his own stance. "Fine," He replied to him as the two stood there to study each other for a moment.

Suddenly they attacked each other and Wing sped up his fighting, causing him to have trouble blocking and defending. "Come on, your faster then this." Wing stated. "You know you are." His hands blurred as Duo got punched into a wall. He frowned and wiped the blood from his lips and glanced at his hand. Hmm, so he could get hurt in the dream world? That makes it all the more interesting! He wondered if he got a split lip in the real world too.

"How the fuck did you do that? I thought the rules can't be changed in the Matrix?" He replied annoyed that Wing hadn't told him you can move so fast.

"They can't be changed or broken. But they can be bent. Don't think that you can't do it. Know you can."

He thought about it for a second. Okay, the rules can't be broken, but they can be bent. If that was the case, he thought. He can do this. He did a few calculations in his mind to adjust his style and stood up slowly. He ran at Wing and willed his mind to know he could be faster. His form blurred on the visual of the fight and he jumped while the others of the crew stared at the fight with interest.

Wing raised his arms to block but was surprised when Duo jumped over him and twisted in midair to plant his feet against the wall. He absorbed the shock in his legs as he rested his one hand on the wall between his feet. He grinned cheerfully as he hung there for a second before he sprung off and attacked Wing.

"Interesting," Sandrock said. "He defied gravity in the program for a few seconds on the wall."

"His form isn't perfect." Replied Altron. "Hes experimenting, but I suspect he'll come up with the full style of bending the Matrix to it's limit in all areas." Heavyarms nodded in agreement as they watched the battle continue.

It went on for another half an hour as he was learning and expermenting all the things that Wing told him he could do. It was fun, he decided. A video game come to life, sort of. He grinned and wiped the sweat off his face, glanced up at the boy who let him have his break. Although he wasn't normally attracted to boys, he did find Wing to be very sexy especially his eyes. He licked his lips for a moment and grinned. 

"Oi, Wing. Are we done?" He called out to the other boy.

"Hn, Epyon. Load the jump program." 

For a second, the world seemed to spin for him as he shook his head and looked around. He saw they were on a very tall building and Wing was dressed in the clothes that seemed to make him more intimating then he was with his small form and build. He was still in his shabby street clothes of the old Matrix. As soon as he could, he figured to himself, he was going to change it into something more appropreate for the God of Death.

"The jump is a program that helps you understand how you can bend the Matrix more easily. No one ever makes the first jump but you can try. Now watch me." Wing stated as he ran and jumped impossibly high and practically flew to the otherside and landed easily as if he had only jumped two feet instead of twenty feet.

His jaw hit the ground. "No way!" He cried as he glanced over the edge of the building to see the street below. He swallowed hard and backed up. He could do this, nope, he wasn't scared at all. The shaking in his legs were normal. He chewed on his lip and ran as fast as he could and jumped. He seemed to fly for a moment before he started falling down. "ARGH! Nooo, I don't want to become a pancake!" He yelled as he flapped his arms wildly like it would help him fly. He yelped as he fell towards the ground as his braid flapped wildly above him in the wind.

"AAAAAHHHH!" He shut his eyes tight as he fell onto the street but the street actually bended in like rubber and bounced him up before he fell onto the hard cement.

"Oww." He whimpered.

Sandrock shook his head in amusement. "No one ever makes the first jump, and no one ever well." He said prophetically. He smiled and left the room as the others thinned out until only Epyon was still there. The excitement was over and it was back to work they went.

For a few weeks, he trained in the dojo whenever he could. He shaped the style he created from fifteen other Martial art styles and smiled whenever he felt he had made the perfect move. He had created several katas and basic aerial moves that would help him stay in the air a few seconds longer. 

He planned that when they had the machines on the run, he would open up his own dojo and teach students his style in the Matrix. That way, he would have students who unknowingly are helping out in the battle against man and machine and they wouldn't suspect a thing. It would be simple and would help the normal people of the Matrix who had no idea about being controlled by A.I. He even had a name for his style, Anything Goes Martial Arts.

Anything Goes Martial Arts was a style, he decided, that allowed the trainee to adapt to any situation; meaning anything could be used, performed, and perfected within his style. Weapons could be used but not perferred, mostly because they could be taken from you and cause you to lose an important battle. His students would only be the most dictated to the art that would pass his art down through the family lines to keep the families safe from generation to generation.

It would be his best challenge yet! To create the ultimate style of Martial Arts that pushed the Matrix to it's limits and beyond; his apology to all humans still trapped in the Matrix while he got to see the real world. He planned on teaching all his students to jump roofs, move faster, just as Wing showed him to and aerial combat. 

The aerial combat idea came from an anime he saw on T.V in the Matrix called Dragonball Z which he based his techniques of shifting your weight slightly in the air to keep your body from being pulled down by gravity. It was an excellent idea really, he calculated the amount of weight needed to be shifted around in the air and ta da; Aerial combat.

He had Epyon pull him out the training program and got up from the dentist chair nightmare. He could get a quick lunch before he headed back into the dojo for more practice to test out his newest ideas. Suddenly the ship's alarms went off. "Huh? What's happening?" He blinked in confusion when he saw the young blond, Sandrock, running down the hall.

"Sentinals!" Sandrock shouted as he ran down the hall. "Heading our way! Shut all systems down and prepare for a pulse!" Electric pulses were the only things that could stop a sentinel cold, it was the humans's only line of defense against the machine pirates, he had later found out.

"Sandrock!" He grabbed the young blond off to the side. "Yo, man. What's going on? What the hell is a sentinel?"

"Agents that the machines send out to find ship like ours and destroy them before we can reach Zion, the last human city. Come to the bridge with me, it's safer there." He said as he and Duo ran to the bridge, a place he had never been before. Maybe it would be like everything else in this damn ship, he thought. Class "A" science fiction machines.

******

After the sentinel incident (which they all came out unharmed - if you don't count the sentinels), the crew decided it was his time back into the Matrix to visit the Oracle. The Oracle was a woman in the A.I world who had visions of the future, the modern-day fortune teller. From what Sandrock had told him, it seemed everyone had at least gone to her once to have there future told but didn't tell anyone else what she had told them. To him, it seemed like bull shit but hey; if these smart guys believed in some dumb old lady that said stuff about their future, he had no right to tell them any different.

He wondered again where that strange logic came from as he sat down in the dentist chair (he knew he would never think of it as anything else). He sighed and leaned back waiting to get zapped into the Matrix. Although it would be nice to be in America again, the one he lived in for fifteen years of his life, he didn't think he could stand seeing all those people trapped in their minds. It was enough to drive even an insane person like him off the edge!

He saw Sandrock, Wing, Heavyarms, and Altron get into the chairs next to his as they all layed back as Rabbit plugged them all in. When Duo felt the sharp pain and the slight bliss again before he blinked and noticed the world seemed slightly purplish in color. He looked down and grinned when he noticed his clothes. Whoever said he had no sense of sarcastic irony really didn't know him very well. Here he was, the god of death, and he was dressed like a preacher with minister collar and all. He also had a long black coat like Wing's and the purple tinted glasses. He licked his lips, they seemed a bit dry when he noticed he was wearing Father Maxwell's old silver cross around his neck. Ah, the memories!

"Wow, you look nice Deathscythe." Commented Sandrock as he turned to look at him. Oh god, he was in a pink shirt! It took all his self-control not to burst out laughing at that moment. Sandrock blushed a little embarrassed and Heavyarms (dressed in a long green sleeve turtleneck and jeans), gave him a glare. He bowed dramatically as his braid fell over his shoulder with the movement grinning at Heavyarms with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Stop your foolishness!" Altron gazed at him and snorted. He was dressed in white Chinese clothes with black slippers that allowed his feet to flex more then a shoe would allow him to. He had black hair past his shoulders and it was tied painfully tight behind his neck and a little pony tail stuck out from behind his head. "We have to get to the Oracle."

He rolled his eyes and bounded over to the stiff boy, "Come on, Shen-man! Lighten up, man! Geez, your so tense!" He patted Altron's back hard before the boy gave him a hard glare and he chuckled making peace signs as he retreated by Wing.

"Let's go." The captain said as they all filed out the room and headed to the Oracles house. He tried to pay attention to where they were going but it was so boring! Instead he distracted himself by acting like a normal teenage boy glancing at stuff in the store windows and watching everything around him to find anything to entertain him.

Eventually, much to his relief, they arrived at the Oracle's apartment but the others stayed outside while he walked in alone. It wasn't mysterious or fancy with lots of dark colors like he had imagined but it was like any normal apartment. The exception was the kids were doing something strange, bending spoons with their mind and making boxes float in the air. He kneeled down next to the one bending the spoons.

"Hey kid, how are ya doing that?" He saw the bald child look up at him silently. He smiled as if he had found an old friend and held up the spoon in Duo's view.

"The spoon isn't real." The kid said as he stared at it intensily before the top of the spoon started to bend and twist in shape. He watched in awe as the spoon twisted back to normal and he looked at the kid. The kid held the spoon out to him. "Go head, try it."

He grabbed the spoon and held it up like the kid showed him. He stared at it intensely, feeling a little foolish. He had no idea how the kid had done that bending the spoon thing but it was worth a try. He tried to imagine the spoon bending to the left then twisting to the right. To his surprise as he stared at the spoon, it started to bend to the left then twisting to the right. Oh cool!

"The Oracle will see you now." A voice said to his left, it made him lose concentration when he glanced up at the lady with two huge curls over each shoulder. When he glanced at the spoon again it was normal. The kid smiled at him and grabbed the spoon from Duo as he started to play again.

He stood up and followed the woman to the kitchen. "Thank you, Sally Po." said a woman to his left who was taking cookies out of the oven. The woman nodded and left the room leaving Duo alone with the normal looking middle-aged woman. She layed the cookies on the counter and got out some milk. 

"My name is Noin. I know who you are; you are Duo Maxwell. I'm what the resistance calls the Oracle, but you already know that." She said as she walked back next to him and sat down, putting the two milk glasses on the table. "You don't believe I can really predict the future, do you Mr. Maxwell?"

He grinned and leaned back in the chair. "Of course not. It's all fake."

"Watch out for falling milk." 

"Huh?" He replied before his chair slipped back from his leaning on only two legs and he kicked the table and the milk glasses tipped over and milk landed on him as he coughed. He blinked up at her and she was smiling sweetly. He frowned and got up off the floor as Noin offered him a towel to dry himself off. 

"Okay, MAYBE you can predict the future," he replied skeptically. "So what's my future?"

"You, Duo Maxwell, are the one prophesized to give mankind an edge on the agents. In fact, like your friends out there, all five of you use more then 10% of your brain to make you all more intelligent and flexible. You're the evolved humans, born to give human kind one last gigantic battle against the machines before we all loose hope." Her tone was seriously with an edge of desperation. Noin wanted him to understand his destiny to give the last hope. 

He gazed at her trying to digest the information he was given. He was going to do something someday that will give the humans an advantage against the machines? Why him? Shouldn't it be Heavyarms, or Sandrock? Hell, Wing was probably more suited for the whole 'give mankind hope' thing. 

But as he thought about it, it kind of made sense that he was special. He could calculate math faster then a computer and seemed to be more quick to learn things then any other person he met besides the four friends outside this apartment. But he still didn't understand why it had to be him.

He looked up into the Oracle's in the eyes. "But..why me? Why not the other guys? When are we going to win against the machines? Will we win against the machines?" He said rapidly firing questions at the Oracle with his voice full of worry for human kind.

Noin gazed at him in all seriousness for a moment. She leaned over the table and gazed into his violet eyes and went into a semi-trance. "When all of you are reborn long from now, you shall be the ones to lead humankind to victory against the A.I." She paused and she seemed to be staring at something far away because her eyes were slightly gazed over. "By then, the Earth would be ready for her children to walk the beautiful green-garden surface again. All shall awaken from the Matrix and become free. You might not understand me now, but you will Duo Maxwell; Shinigami."

She came out of her trance and smiled sweetly as she held out the plate of chocolate chip cookies at him. "Would you like a cookie? They're very good you know."

He blinked in confusion and grabbed a cookie, chewing on it in absentmindedly. He was in shock, he supposed. He was going to do something in his life now then be reborn to finish what he started. Does that mean he dies now? What will he do to give the humans such a large advantage against the A.I?

"You should leave now," Noin said as she got up from the table and started to clean the milk mess. "Your friends are waiting for you." 

He nodded as he grinned at her cheerfully and walked out the kitchen in a semi-daze. He opened the door and walked out the apartment to see the others waiting for him while they leaned against the wall. Wing glanced over at him and stood up straight. "Let's go," he said in that monotone voice that got on his nerves. He wondered if Wing ever sucked in helium, would he have a high-pitched monotone voice? He chuckled low to himself and shook the thoughts from his mind.

Everyone stood up and they walked out of the apartment building. Suddenly Wing's cell phone ringed and he took it out of his pocket. "Wing here." He frowned and nodded. "Agents?" That got everyone's attention and they all listened closely to the one-sided conversation. "Where is the nearest exit, Epyon?" He nodded again and shut the cell phone, stuffing it into his pocket.

"Follow me, we have agents on our trail." Wing stated as they headed to the train station that was about ten blocks from where they were.

******

"Great, JUST great!" He said sarcastically as they climbed up the stairs as fast as they could. The agents had caught up to them before they could exit the Matrix by the payphone in the train station. He didn't know what the payphone had to do with them exiting the Matrix but it must be important, at least that's what he picked up from Altron yelling curses in Chinese while they ran from the train station. It was very funny too, and he would have laughed if he wasn't being chased by the Men in Black (his nickname for the agents), at the moment. Now here they were, trapped in a government building with agents hot on their trail. 

"I really wanted to have a nice sprint around Asbury Park, it's such a lovely day for a good ol' run around the ghetto." His sarcasm was in good working order; it hadn't gotten rusty in one little bit, he thought to himself.

"Shut up, Deathscythe!" Altron snapped as they reached the top floor and busted through the metal door that led to the exit. They ran up onto the roof and he glanced down over the edge at the long drop to the ground. He swallowed hard trying not to think about what he would look like as a pancake, it wasn't a pretty picture.

Two agents walked out from the doorway onto the roof and they gazed at the boys dispassionately. One looked at Wing with an even more emotionless face than Wing could ever hope to make, he thought that wasn't possible. "Mr. Yuy, you'll have to come with us."

Wing frowned and glared at the agent with hatred in his eyes. "You won't get the codes."

He gazed at Wing, then at the agents. He was totally confused but didn't show it. So, his last name was Yuy? Interesting, he thought. He wondered what these codes were that the agents wanted to much as to chase them down five blocks, run up a few flights of stairs, to get from Wing for whatever purpose.

He blinked when Wing took out a gun and shot at the agents. He couldn't move, his eyes were wide and he stared as the agents moved faster then he could track, they took out a gun and shot at them. "Get down!" Wing yelled as he pushed Duo down to the ground as the bullets grazed Wing in the side. He growled and got up off Duo and yelled to Altron in something Japanese before he attacked the agents.

Duo sat there watching before he felt someone pulling him up, it was Altron. "Baka, come on! While they're distracted, we leave!"

His eyes widened. "B-but what about Wing?!" He didn't want to leave the stoic partner in the resistance, he was just starting to understand him. He didn't want to alone with the agents! He could get killed and then he would never see him again, or they could torture him again and they wouldn't be able to get him. He shuddered at the thought, he wouldn't be able to stand it if they left the Japanese boy alone.

"Forget him! He ordered me to get you and everyone to the nearest exit and fast! Now shut up and move!" Altron hissed angrily as he and the others started to run down the stairs again. He glanced at Wing's direction before he bolted down the stairs following the others, leaving the boy to his fate. He had an awful feeling about all of this, it felt like it would be the last time he would ever see Wing again.

They reached the nearest telephone booth and Altron took out a cell phone. "Epyon get us the hell out of here. Set up an exit." He snapped the cell phone shut and stuffed it into his pocket. He motioned Sandrock over and the pay phone stared to ring.

__

Riiiing. Riiiiing.

Sandrock smiled and picked up the phone, Duo blinked in shock. The blond boy just disappeared as soon as he picked up the phone. Heavyarms walked over to the phone and hung it up, as soon as it was on the hook it started to ring.

__

Riiing. Riii-

Duo rubbed his eyes to make sure. Yup, Heavyarms had just disappeared into the phone as soon as he took it off the hook. Altron motioned him over with a scowl. "Come on! Do what you saw the others do."

He walked over and hung up the phone. It started to ring.

__

Riiing. Riiiiing.

He picked it up off the hook and he felt a pulling sensation before his eyes snapped open and he saw the familiar ceiling of the operating room with Heavyarms coming over and pulling out the cord from his skull. He sat up and looked over at Altron whose eyes had snapped open his eyes as Sandrock took out the cord.

He narrowed his eyes and as soon as Altron was up, he jumped out his chair and grabbed his shirt in anger looking at him in his black eyes. "Why the hell did we leave Wing? He can't take on two agents! We hafta go back and get him! We have ta' get 'em back!" He was so angry that he was reverting to his street accent. How could they leave him behind like that? Did Wing being their friend mean nothing to them? The hell with captain's orders, they shouldn't have left him behind!

"It's too risky, we can't rescue him." Altron stated as he pushed the angry crewmate off him. Duo glared at the Chinese boy, he wasn't done chewing the guy out yet!

"Too risky? TOO RISKY?! You're going to leave your friend, your CAPTAIN in the hands of the A.I because it's too risky?" His hands were shaking in anger at his sides, he was gripping so tight his knuckles were turning white. "Well, fuck you! I don't care what you think I'm going to go rescue him!"

Sandrock put a hand on his shoulder and spoke softly. "We can't, Deathscythe. It's too dangerous, he'll understand." He ripped his shoulder free from the polite boy's hand and stared at them all like he hardly recognized any of them.

"You're-You're going to leave him there? A-and not even try to get him?" His eyes reflected his emotions clearly, he had no respect for them at all anymore for giving up on their friend and captain. "Fine! I'll go alone!"

"Shinigami!" Altron snapped in his direction. "You won't alone," he glanced at the other two boys and frowned. "We'll go with you."

His mood changed quickly as he grinned cheerfully and slapped Altron's back. "Knew you wouldn't let me, Shenie-baby! Now we gotta come up with a plan!"

Through the whole night, the crew came up with a plan to get their leader back. The plan was simple, Altron and Deathscythe would go into the building Wing was being held and shoot up the place while going to the room he was held in and get him back from the agents. Heavyarms and Sandrock would get a helicopter from a nearby army base and steal it, flying it to the building and picking up the other three boys. It was a simple plan because the simple ones are the best ones to use. But a lot of mistakes could be made so he thought they had to be very careful, especially when in the building.

He blinked when they were in the white void again. He turned to look at Altron who smirked at him. "This is the loading program, we need weapons in order to fight. Epyon, load weapons rack." Altron called out into the void.

Suddenly a wind rushes by him and he sees a blurred rack come to a stop behind them. It had every single type of weapon you could ever possibly want. It had guns, C-4 explosives, bazookas, grenades, knives, etc. He grinned wickedly and started grabbing guns, explosives, and grenades from off the racks. He started to stuff them in easy acsessable places in his coat, pants, boots, and even place a few small knives in his braid. 

He saw Altron stuff up on weapons too before he grabbed four black gym bags and started to stuff them with weapons too. He walked over and helped the Chinese boy and soon they were fully loaded and ready to go. "I'm ready, Shen-man, how about you?"

He saw Altron smirk as the light glinted off his gray tinted sunglasses. "They won't know what hit them, the weaklings."

"Hey, Shen-man? I was wondering about something," He glanced in Altron's direction. "Can this room make anything appear? Like, junk yard parts and stuff?" He had an idea, a very good one but he didn't know if it could work. It would be very hard, and it would run his thoughts thin in the process but it was a very cool idea. He just needed to know if he could get the parts to make it.

"I don't know, Wing might. When we get him back, ask him." Altron replied distracted as he counted how much weapons they both carried. He nodded to himself and stood up, picking up two of the black gym bags and Duo picked up the other two. 

He didn't know why he was risking everyone's lives to save one man, no, not just a man but his semi-crush. He had to admit he liked Wing a lot. Over the last few months he had gotten to know Wing and he was very fluent in Wing-ese now and could even find the smallest hint of emotion on the Japanese boy's face with ease. It scared him to a point, he wasn't really into relationships since he never had any and he didn't think Wing would like him like that, but at the same time he had hope that the silent boy did like him. 

He didn't want to see Wing tortured, having seen movies where the villains always come up with the best tortures he knew what Wing was in for. Although he wasn't sure he was Wing's one and only, he was his friend, and he would never let any of his friends get hurt. He just hoped no one else got hurt in the process.

******

The doors swung open as Altron and Deathscythe walked in with a purpose. When they got to the middle of the floor; halfway from the door to the front desk they both dropped they black gym bags and reached into their coats with grace of trained martial artists and grabbed the guns from out the belts of their pants. He smirked and cocked his gun as the police officers in the building started taking out their guns. "Sayanora, suckers!" He cried as he pulled the triggers and started shooting the police officers down with the machine gun's rapid fire.

Altron easily shot down all the police who headed his way just as return fire started up. The Chinese boy ducked, grabbed the bags, and dodged behind one of the pillars in the lobby. He saw that the braided boy was still standing there and would get shot if he kept at it. Suddenly the American boy grabbed the bags and ducked behind one of the pillars on the other side. He turned to Altron's side and winked at him while mouthing, 'I got it covered! Head for the elevator!' Altron nodded and slowly made his way to the elevator, shooting any police officers that got in his way. 

He grinned as he glanced at the police from behind the pillar and ducked again when the spot where his head was shot at, chucking up some marble into the air. He looked down at his guns and threw them down since they were out of ammo. He grabbed two more guns from his belt that were handguns and cocked the guns. He breathed deeply before running out from the cover of the pillar and started shooting rapidly at the police while he ran across the floor. He ducked behind another pillar, leaning against it and grinned when they only shot marble. At least he didn't get shot, he thought.

Slowly they worked their way towards the elevator. Altron ducked into the elevator as he grinned and grabbed a grenade from his pocket. He pulled the ring from the grenade and threw it into the middle of the room and calmly walked into the elevator - which shut behind him. After a few more seconds in the elevator, he looked down at his watch. "3..2...1" 

__

BOOOOOOOOOM!

The elevator shook from the after shock and the lights flickered slightly. He noticed Altron glaring at him and he grinned. "What? I like blowing stuff up okay? Can't I have a little fun?"

"Baka! Now the agents know we're here!" Altron snapped angrily at him. 

He rolled his eyes. "Shen-man, from all the noise we were causing from just shooting up the place, you think they don't know we're here already? Geez man, and people think I'm thick." He said in a sarcastic tone, not minding in the least at the death glare his friend was giving him.

The elevator door opened and they headed down the hall to the room where Wing was being kept. He kicked open the door and spotted two agents, the same two that Wing was originally fighting. Wing was tied to a chair and looked kind of out of it. He must've been drugged so that the agents could get the codes from him. Well, too bad Shinigami was here to bust up the party!

While Altron distracted the agents by fighting them, he went behind Wing and took the knife from his braid and snapped it open. He tried to pick the lock of the handcuffs with his knife and soon he heard a click that signaled he had unlocked it. He took the handcuffs off of Wing's wrists and shook him. "Hey Wing, wake up buddy. We've gotta get outta here."

"Hn." Slowly Wing lifted his head up and got out the chair. Duo grabbed some more guns from the back part of his pants and hands them to Wing. 

"You get Altron out of here, okay? I'll hold them off until you guys get to the landing pad. I'll meet ya there." He grinned and moved away from Wing over into the agent's view of sight. 

"Hey, tin cans!" He saw the agents look up at him from attacking Altron. "Yeah, I'm talking to you, ya mother fuckers!" He grinned and gave them the red eye. "Remember me?"

"Mr. Maxwell, you should come with us." Replied one of the agents as they moved away from Altron.

"Yeah well, what if I don't wanna? You gotta catch me first!" He cackled and threw a smoke bomb before running out the room. The agents quickly followed him leaving Wing and Altron alone.

"That baka! He's going to get himself killed!" Altron yelled as he started to follow them but Wing stood in his way. 

"Leave him be," he stated in monotone voice. "He's giving us a chance to get to the escape route. He knows what he's doing." He looked up at Altron. "How do we get out of here?"

"Follow me," Altron replied as he dashed out the room, heading towards the roof of the building where the helicopter landing pad is.

Duo sprinted using his Matrix speed to the limit as he ducked, dodged, and used the building to his advantage. He knew if he made one small mistake, it was 'Goodbye' freedom fighter and 'Hello' battery. He grabbed one of his grenades from his coat pocket and pulled the pin. Without looking he threw it backwards and ran faster as an explosion rang out, almost knocking him down to the ground. He noticed he was heading toward a dead end and cursed in his mind. He glanced behind him to see the two agents, Trieze and Une, gaining speed on him.

He looked forward again and jumped up onto the wall, absorbing the shock before flipping behind the agents and taking out his gun. He shot both behind the head but they dodged and he cursed again and turned around running as fast as he could to the stairs. He kicked open the door and ran up the flights of stairs to the roof. He glanced down and noticed the agents were still following him. They were like the energizer bunny, they kept going and going and going!  


The door to the roof was open and he took that as a sign that Altron got Wing onto the roof. He heard the helicopter above his head and grinned. Well, now he knew that Sandrock and Heavyarms held up their part of the plan. He saw the others were waiting for him and he noticed that there was a rope ladder and he ran towards the end of the roof and jumped onto the ladder, hanging on for dear life.

One of the agents, Treize, jumped up onto the rope and started climbing up trying to pull him off the latter. He glared at the agent before climbing up the latter quickly and taking out the knife he had stuck into his pocket after he picked the lock on Wing's handcuffs. He snapped it open and tried to cut the latter. He held on tight when he felt something grab his foot and tried to pull him down. He growled and smirked down at the agent as he cut the last threat then gasped as the agent wouldn't get him go.

Damn that hurt like a bitch! He's a heavy son-of-a-bitch! He saw Sandrock looking down at him with horror and worry. He felt himself being pulled harder and his grip started to slip. The knife was his only weapon, so he only had one chance to get the agent off him. He shifted his grip on the rope and threw the knife at Agent Treize's head and the agent left the host as the dead woman let go of his leg and dropped to the ground. He sighed in relief and climbed up the rest of the way on the latter as the helicopter flew towards a safe house where they could use a phone to get the hell out of the Matrix.

******

They had all gotten to the safe house with no problems. Wing had called up Epyon to see where the nearest phone was and they were heading up to it now. When they reached the room they waited for the ringing of the phone to signal the exit. Suddenly, Wing's cell phone rang and he picked it up. "What?"

"Oh you're so impolite today, perfect soldier." Replied a female voice on the line. Duo watched as Wing's eyes narrow in anger. He wondered what was going on, he had a bad feeling about this. He glanced at Sandrock and noticed he had the same feeling because he looked nervous.

"What do you want Rabbit? Where's Epyon?"

"He's indisposed at the moment. You know Wing, you could have had me." The voice said airily to the captain. "But no, you go for an immature brat who isn't even strong enough to be with you!" Her angry voice was tinged with jealousy. "I'll give you one chance, join me or you'll regret it."

Wing frowned. "Traitor, I would never join you." He replied in monotone.

"Take one good look at your friend Sandrock because he's going Bye-bye!" Wing's eyes widened as Sandrock's eyes lost their light and he dropped motionlessly onto the floor. Heavyarms dropped to his knees next to Sandrock and shook him. 

"No..Sandrock. Wake up.." The normally quiet boy looked like he was about to scream and he couldn't take the look in those deep green eyes so he looked over at Wing instead.

"Rabbit! Stop this at once!" Wing stated flatly as he clenched his fists in anger.

"No, no, no! Not unless you give up that silly thing the Oracle told you and you join me. Then I'll stop."

"No. Stop it Relena!" The captain's voice was stern and in an 'I order you' tone. His eyes widened, so Rabbit's name was Relena? Well, he found more everyday. He tried not to look at Sandrock's corpse, he would morn later because now wasn't the time to. Not when there was a crazy woman on the loose that could kill you with one pull of a plug! He saw Altron was muttering under his breath, "Silly, weak woman. Foolish woman!" And he had to agree with the Chinese boy on that.

"Say your last words to Heavyarms, Wing-dear." Was all the voice said over the cell phone to Wing as the captain looked up at Heavyarms before the green eyed boy stiffened then slumped over Sandrock. 

"NO!" He grabbed the cell phone from Wing and yelled into the phone. "You bitch! Stop it! Don't kill anyone more you psycho, fucked up whore!"

"Tsk, tsk Deathscythe, or should I call you Duo? I won't stop until Wing admits he loves me and will join me into the Matrix again--" The phone hissed with static as a blast of something was heard and his eyes widened.

"Hello? Hello! Anyone there?" He heard someone pick up the headset and was breathing heavy. 

"'Gonna send you the exit now..Deathscythe.." Eypon's voice said with a tone of pain laced through it. He wondered how badly he was hurt. He hoped it wasn't life threatening.

The phone rang.

******

When the rest of the crew came out of the Matrix, Eypon looked to be in a lot of pain. His whole one side was burned and scorched by some type of weapon and his breathing was too shallow and fast. Wing got unplugged by Eypon, and Wing unplugged Altron and Altron unplugged him. He sat up and looked over at the chairs Sandrock and Heavyarms were in. He felt his eyes tear up just looking at the dead lovers. 

His throat constricted as he tried not to cry at the sight of his friends that were dead because of some jealous psycho bitch. It hurt and the pain was unbearable, he didn't think knowing these two guys would hurt so much losing them. But it did, oh god it wasn't fair! He slammed his fist into his armrest in anger and against all his efforts a few tears fell. It wasn't fair, they didn't deserve to die!

He felt a pair of arms wrap around him and he clung to the person in comfort. All it took was that one touch and the dam broke, he started to sob while the person held him closer. He had never felt someone close die in front of him before, it was an experience he never wanted to repeat. 

The pain he had seen in Heavyarm's eyes as Sandrock lay there on the ground still was wrong. They didn't deserve that. They didn't deserve dying in a world of fantasy! It was all so damn wrong. Sandrock had never done anything to Rabbit, he was the kindest boy he had ever known and had a heart of gold. Heavyarms was like the lion of the pride, he protected them all from danger but he had a big heart for Sandrock to have. He never wanted to see anyone end up like those two, he didn't want people to die in a fantasy world where machines control you for energy!

He sniffled and took in a shaky breath as he started to relax in the person's arms. Who ever that was holding him was warm and made him feel secure and safe. He started to drift off to sleep and felt he was being picked up and he snuggled into the warm embrace more and breathed in deeply smelling a unique scent of musk and machine oil. He felt himself being layed gently on a bed and the safe embrace he was in started to leave.

He panicked and grabbed onto the person pulling them close. He felt the person tense but then they relaxed as if they had given up and the person got into bed next to him. Duo snuggled into the warm embrace that had encircled him again and he slowly drifted off into sleep listening to the heartbeat of the person laying next to him.

The next morning he awoke in strong arms and he slowly opened his eyes to stare at the sleeping captain Wing. He grinned and studied each little detail of his face. The way his hair fell over one of his eyes, the long eyelashes, the perfectly sculpted face. God, he was beautiful, was the only thought that ran through his mind. 

He closed his eyes fully aware he didn't want to ever get up, although he knew he had to. They needed to go to Zion, the last human city, to bury the bodies of his comrades. He felt the tears come again and he tried to force them back. Some slid down the sides of his cheeks making wet tear tracks. He felt a feathery touch against his cheek and he opened his eyes to see Wing wide-awake, wiping his tears away with his fingers.

Wing got up quickly from the bed as if he just realized what he was doing and walked out the room, totally ignoring Duo. He sat up, a little confused. Was he suppose to act like they didn't sleep next to each other? He sighed and stretched his arms above his head and rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes. He stood up and slipped on his boots and ran his fingers through his still very short hair. 

His eyes seemed much older when he glanced into the mirror in his room. They looked to be an old mans eyes instead of the fifteen-year-old boy he was. He shook his head and walked down his room heading toward the bridge station so he could catch a glimpse of the last human city before they docked. He noticed everyone seemed really quiet and didn't speak at all. He frowned, now that wasn't right! He knew Sandrock and Heavyarms wouldn't want their friends to be all down in the dumps just cause they died. Maybe now was a good time to give them his idea.

"Hey guys!" He greeted cheerfully as he plopped down onto one of the chairs all relaxed. No one spoke to him and he rolled his eyes and said in a slight sarcastic tone. "Morning to you too!"

"Hn."

He looked thoughtful and glanced in Wing's direction. "Hey Wing? You know the loading program right?" He saw Wing glance at him and he took that as a 'yes'. "I was wondering, can it load like, metal sheets, bolts, and other stuff?"

Wing steered the ship to the left tunnel as he thought about it. "I don't know," he checked the coordinates. "But in Zion there is a mechanic named Howard who would."

He nodded and made a mental note to check out this Howard guy as he watched the ship move down the tunnel. He hoped the loading program did work like that, so he could build on that idea that just won't go away. If it didn't well, he knew the fortune teller lady was cracked and high on dope.

His breath caught up in his throat when he saw Zion coming up on screen. God, it was stunning! The lights were everywhere; it looked like New York City only more crowded and that should be impossible in its self. He moved closer to the screen and he gazed at the last human city in awe. 

When he was first told of it, he had thought of something primitive, like stone houses and hay roofs. Not the metal structure that was before his very eyes! He could see all the busy humans using old Chinese pushing carts to get everywhere and the vast amount of humans pushing to get where they needed to go. 

The city was on a rock cliff, but it looked fairly deep into the side of the tunnel so it wouldn't fall if there were an earthquake. He could see hundreds of ships like theirs docking and leaving the ports along the side of the cliff city.

Oh, and the wonderful heat! On ship, it was about only sixty degrees and that was really cold, but he could feel the eighty-degree weather from even inside this hunk of junk. He estimated that they were pretty close to the mantle layer of the earth and was surprised they weren't burning up yet. Well, if he could trust the old science books from the Matrix, the sun would be middle-aged about right now, heading into what humans would term 'late fifties' in age. So that would mean all the planets would start to cool down further, which would mean less heat would reach the surface and that meant no volcanoes.

Eypon chuckled. "Not what you expected, is it kid?"

He turned to look at him and grinned, "I thought it would be like, stone houses or something. Not something that looked to be out of the twenty-first century!"

"Just because the machines have cornered us," Wing spoke from the steering seat. "Doesn't mean we still don't have modern convinces like radio, T.V, and computers."

"Oh." Now he felt like a total idiot. Great way to impress some guy you like, show him you're a complete and total moron in anything but math. 

The ship docked on the port of Zion and the crew loaded off the ship. He saw one of the mechanics and ran over to him. "Hiya! Umm, do you know where Howard is?"

The mechanic wiped some grease from his forehead and nodded. "Yeah kid, he's over in district two. Just head-down those stairs and take a left. The junkyard is called 'Junk R Us'. Ya can't miss it!"

He nodded and grinned cheerfully. "Thanks man!"

"No prob." The mechanic replied as he got back to work.

He walked down the stairs into the port lobby and headed out the building and took a left. He walked down the street with his mouth open in wonder as he gazed around at the buildings. It was so much cooler on the inside then it looked on the outside! The sidewalk was crowded like New York City streets and it took him a long time until he spotted a big sign that said 'Junk R Us'. He walked into the garage and cleared his throat. "Uh, hello? Anyone in?"

A man with a white beard and black sunglasses walked out from the back room, wiping his hands off with a towel to get rid of the grease. He grinned and looked over at him. "Hey kid, anything I can do for ya?"

"Uh," he paused wondering if he was at the right place. "Is there a Howard here?"

The man grinned, "I'm Howard. What can I do for ya?"

He grinned and walked over and shook his hand. "Well, I'm Deathscythe! And I got a question about the loading program on ships.." He blinked in surprise when the old man gripped his hand firmly and smirked.

"Well kid, I made that program! So ask away."

"Can you load metal sheets and tools into the program? Ya know, build your own weapon?" He asked uncertain, he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of the old guy.

Howard looked thoughtful. "Hmm, well what do you have in mind?"

"Get me a pad and a pencil and I'll show ya!"

******

He grinned when he put the finishing touches on his weapon. He shaded in the eyes and held it out in front of him to get a better look. It was large and man-shaped with a Roman soldier helmet, it had a large gun that it gripped in its black hands and it looked to be aiming straight at him while flying in the air using booster power. 

It had four large boosters on its back like a rocket pack and two slots on each heel for more rocket power to come out of. It had a hatch in its chest plate and it was darkened with an arrow pointing to the hatch from the side of the page. A little mini-version of himself with his long hair was waving from the ground. Little notes* were written on the side like:

Height: 16.3m

Weight: 7.4t

General Output: 3009XW

Thruster General Output: 25340kg

Armaments: Booster Beam Cannon

Hyper Jammerx2: Active Cloak 

He signed his name at the bottom of the page and got up from his seat. He walked over to Howard that was fixing a ship engine and handed him the sketch. Howard almost fell onto his butt in surprise and he gripped the seat tightly. "What the heck is this?"

"Well," he said slyly. "In all the movies, you need a machine to beat a machine." He winked and pointed to the mobile suit with his pencil tip. "This is what I call a Mobile Suit. It allows a human to sit in the chest plate here," he pointed to the chest hatch. "And inside its a computer system that attaches to your brainwaves and gives you quicker reflexes and battle plans." 

He grinned at the older man's shock. "It's like a V.R game with the controls because you have three view screens that shows you all the area around yourself and the motion functions work like video game control sticks and video game car gears." 

He pointed to the boosters, "These are like rockets. I named them boosters because they boost the machine into the air so it can fly and maneuver in air and outer space. This thing here," he pointed to the booster rifle with his pencil tip. "Is the booster beam cannon rifle. If I did my math correctly, if you were to fire this at the earth from the surface, you would blast about 50 feet into the ground from 20 feet above sea level."

His grin changed into an evil smirk. "It's enough power to take out the machine bases all over the planet from inside the Matrix. The agents would no longer be a problem and the master computers themselves would be easy. Unless of course they get smart and try and build mobile suits too."

"God kid," Howard said in slight awe. "How did you come up with it?"

He looked down at his nails with his fingers spread out in a mocking, snobbish motion. "Ever see toy robots?" Howard fell over anime style with a major sweat-drop.

Later that night he returned to the ship very tired and sleepy. He headed towards his room and opened the door, then shut it behind him as he was laid down on his bed and closed his eyes. His eyes snapped open a moment later and he sat up. "How long were u standing there?"

"Half an hour. Why are you back so late?" Wing questioned in that flat monotone.

"Working on something." He replied as he lay back down to sleep. He yawned and pulled up the think covers. "Why?"  


"What were you working on?"

"None of your business, geez! I'll tell you later, can I go to sleep now?"

"Hn."

He sighed and rolled over listening to the door open and then shut close. He rubbed his eyes and yawned again before falling asleep into his dream of his life in the Matrix.

******

__

One Year Later

"SURPRISE!!"

"ACK!" He yelled out as he clenched his chest over his heart in surprise. He blinked when he noticed the banners of 'Congratulations' hanging everywhere in the store. His face slowly broke out into a smile as he noticed the whole crew was there including Wing with Howard. 

He brushed one of his smaller braids out of his face and grinned. His hair was now about four inches long and he had smuggled a brush and made his short hair into small little braids that made him look really punk like and cool. Plus, it got the hair out of his face and it covered up his connector unless he used his bandanna to tie the top part of his head so that its free without getting hair caught inside it. He saw Howard had cooked up what looked to be a slop cake, he was sure it was because it was dripping towards one side. "What's all this for?"

Howard grinned and held up a small black disk. "For the mobile suit weapon! With this baby, the Matrix is as good as dead! This is your party for celebration of the best weapon yet!"

He blushed, "But you guys didn't have to do all this for me, I woulda been happy with a simple 'Congrats, Shinigami.' and not this big party and all - not that I'm not thankful! I love it!"

"You deserve it, you baka." Replied Altron as he smirked and held up a jug. "We even made basement beer for your party. So enjoy being drunk while you can because you won't ever get to again while I'm around!"

"Gee, thanks Shen-man. I'll be sure to remember that." He said dryly. With that said, the party got under way. It was loud with lots of laughing and music from old CDs and tapes played in the back round. Altron had gotten drunk and passed out on the couch, he would have laughed if he weren't so sloshed himself! He could barely stand so he lay on one of the beds and blinked when he saw an equally drunk Wing sit next to him. 

Although they had never gotten to the point of a relationship or even kissed, they sometimes slept in the same bed together to help deal with the loneliness ship life causes. He leaned against Wing and took a sip of his cheap rum. "Nee, Wing-chan?" He said in Japanese, Wing had been teaching him a little when they weren't doing anything important on the ship. He was pretty good at phrases now and he knew a few he liked.

"Hn?" A bleary-eyed Wing glanced down at him and he couldn't help it but smile at the captain's bloodshot eyes. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw Wing leaning closer with a smirk on his face. He felt the older boy's warm, rum scented breath on his lips and without conscious thought he half-closed his eyes and leaned forward until their lips were barely brushing against each other.

"Omae o kisu*.." Wing whispered breathlessly as he captured Duo's lips in a chaste kiss. He felt like pulling back, it was wrong for his captain to kiss him but another part of his mind enjoyed it, wanting more then just a bashful kiss on the lips. He wrapped his arms loosely around Wing's neck and pulled him closer as he leaned into the kiss.

Soon it became more passionate as Wing's tongue brushed up against his upper lip. He gasped in surprise then moaned when the tongue slipped past his defenses and invaded his mouth. Without realizing it until it was too late, he was lain on his back on the bed and Wing was on top of him. 

Knowing they both needed to breathe, they broke apart the kiss slowly and stared deeply into each other's eyes. Wing gave him a small smile, the first real smile he had seen on his captain's face and it made him all the more handsome in his eyes. Wing rolled off him to his side and pulled him closer to the older boy's body. He snuggled into the warm and felt strong arms wrap around him. He listened to the heart beat in his friend's - no - lover's chest as it eased him off to sleep with Wing soon following him into dream land.

******

He looked up at the large robot in the loading void he dubbed as the 'gundam' type of mobile suit in honor of the ship's name, Gundanium. His chest bursting with pride at the finished product of his idea. It had taken all the remaining crew's technical and mechanical know-how in order to create the mobile suit from the ideas he had gotten the day they started the plan to get Wing back from the A.I. 

The project had gone on for a year, ever since the day they got back from the Matrix and mourned for the two lost crew members. He had asked Wing if they could conjure up strong metal parts to build something and the captain said yes. So he had started working on the system of the machine which he had set up much like the Matrix where your connected to the machine; but different because the machine was more like an addition to your body, not a controlled environment.

About two years later they finally finished the mecha and he was honored at Zion with a big party that was to celebrate the completion of mankind's only hope of survival. He remembered at the party that when he and Wing were thoroughly drunk on cheap rum, Wing had kissed him. It was the best moment of his life, other then finishing the mobile suit. When they had woken the next morning they decided to try out a relationship and now they've been going out for a few months. He was in heaven! Or at least, it felt like it because he was on cloud nine.

His mecha, the giant robot he had completed only a week before, was large and humanoid in shape with the Roman helmet in symbolic standing of the perfect soldier; it pushed the Matrix law of physics to the fullest limit. It was his Tallgeese.

"Shi, it's beautiful." Murmured his lover, Wing who had came into the void without his knowledge. The captain gazed up at the mobile suit that would save mankind from the Agents of the Matrix. He strolled over to the braided boy and wrapped his arms around his waist lovingly resting his head on the boy's shoulder. "Mankind will have a chance for a future with the help of the mobile suit, thanks to you."

The boy that was once a kid out of the ghetto of Asbury Park; nodded and grinned wickedly. "I'll say! Let's see those damn A.I beat my gundam! They won't know what hit 'em." He glanced up at his gundam before he looked over his shoulder at Wing with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He ducked under Wing's arms and ran over to his gundam before taking a giant leap and landed on the open hatch of the chest plate. He cackled maniacally and fell into the cockpit before the hatch closed leaving his angry boyfriend outside. 

He grinned cheerfully and turned on the gundam with a few flips of some switches and grabbing the controls he modeled after video game controls. The consoles lit up around him and gave him full view of the area surrounding him as the gundam hummed in response to his brainwaves. The gundam's eyes glowed as he moved the machine into a standing position from the kneeling position it was in before. He remembered - as he tightened his grip on the controls - the words the oracle told him. 

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"When all of you are reborn long from now, you shall be the ones to lead humankind to victory against the A.I. By then, the Earth would be ready for her children to walk the beautiful green-garden surface again. All shall awaken from the Matrix and become free. You might not understand me now, but you will Duo Maxwell; Shinigami."

He flipped on the switch to the outer speakers of the gundam. "Oi, Wing! I'm gonna go kick some A.I ass! Be back in a flash! Tell Shen-man that when I call, he better damn well bring me back!" He laughed wickedly as he powered up the boosters in the heels of the gundam's shoes as the machine lifted off the ground from the air pressure. 

"Shinigami is back from hell! All agents who see me must die!" He flipped on the full power, shifting his grip of the controls. The first mobile suit created by mankind in the Matrix, darted off into the sky and out of sight.

And that was how it all began.

******

Whew! Man, what a long story. It took me a week to finish but I'm proud of it. Please, tell me if you like my story! And maybe if I get enough reviews, I'll write a sequal! I hope you liked my story just as much as I liked writing it! (No matter how much my back hurts from sitting my butt in a chair for hours at a time).

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Omae o kisu - I'll kiss you.

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Baka - Idiot

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Shinigami - The god of Death

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The notes of Tallgeese: Not really the real configurations! I stole some of the info off my Gundam D-Hell desktop theme - which had most of that info. But I do know the gundams would be about fifty feet tall, 48.6 feet to be exact. ^.^ Cool huh?

Ja!

-AlantisB


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